A Constitutional Crisis

A retired IAS officer, BS Raghavan, formerly chief secretary to the government of West Bengal, has written a column on a "much simpler solution to Maoism," wherein he looks the problem in the eye. He writes:

I am obliged to Deboo Bandyopadhyay, than whom it is difficult to find a person who has made such a deep study of Naxalism, for the information that, according to a knowledgeable scholar, Dr Walter Fernandes, between 1947 and 2004 nearly six crore (60 million) persons were forcibly displaced due to acquisition of land for development purposes, and of them 40 per cent constituted Scheduled Tribes. Out of a total population of generic tribals of eight crore, 2.4 crore (24 million) were involuntarily thrown out of their land, home and occupation. This figure constitutes 30 per cent of the total tribal population.

Official figures admit that only 28 per cent of the displaced tribal population has been rehabilited. Assuming that even this low figure is not an exaggeration, what happened to the remaining 72 per cent of the displaced tribals numbering 1.44 crore (14.4 million)?

We must all thank Deboo for giving his highness this information, which surely should have been at the fingertips of a socialist planning bureaucracy equipped with so much statistics.

But does this retired IAS officer see Private Property as a Principle that needs to be upheld by the civilian administration? No. He has a "simpler solution":

There is a much simpler answer to Maoism than even development, and that is good and honest governance and rule of law. There should be visible evidence that the government is determined to deal summary justice to the corrupt and the venal, rid legislatures and cabinets of persons involved in crimes, and inculcate sensitivity, empathy, responsiveness, commitment to values, dedication to the public weal and, most of all, humility in public servants from top to bottom.

Note that these are just pretty words, devoid of any understanding of the First Principle of Government.

In his posthumously published pamphlet, Interventionism: An Economic Analyisis (Pdf here, go to page 8 of the text for the following quote) Ludwig von Mises writes of what The State is expected to do in a Capitalist Society, which should be the direction in which most of us want to proceed, finding nothing attractive in either socialism or Maoism - or even Hindootva. It must be Capitalism Or Bust, which means a Private Property Order. Mises writes these important words about what The State is expected to do in such an order, something which should be of great interest to those who administer our public affairs. Mises writes:

In a market economy the State concerns itself with the protection of the life, health, and private property of its citizens against force or fraud. The state insures the smooth working of the market economy by the weight of its coercive power. It refrains, however, from any interference with the freedom of action of the people engaged in production and distribution so long as such actions do not involve the use of force or fraud against the life, health, safety, or property of others. This very fact characterizes such a community as a market economy or a capitalist economy.

If liberal, i.e., classical liberals, oppose governmental interference in the economic sphere they do so because they feel certain that the market economy is the only efficient and workable system of social cooperation. They are convinced that no other system would be in a position to bring more welfare and happiness to the people.

The English and French liberals and the fathers of the U.S. Constitution insisted upon the protection of private property, not to further the selfish interests of one class, but rather for the protection of the whole people and because they saw the welfare of the nation and of each individual most secure in the system of a market economy.

It is, therefore, naive to say that the true liberal advocates of private property are enemies of the state because they want to see the realm of governmental activity limited. They are not enemies of the state but opponents of both socialism and interventionism because they believe in the superior efficacy of the market economy. They want a strong and well-administered state because they assign to it an important task: the protection of the system of a market economy.

Even more naive were the Prussian metaphysicians when they maintained that the program of the adherents of a market economy was negative. To these supporters of Prussian totalitarianism everything seemed negative that stood in the way of their desire to create more governmental jobs. The program of the advocates of a market economy is negative only in the sense in which every program is negative: It excludes all other programs. Because the true liberals are positively for private ownership of the means of production and for a market economy they are necessarily against socialism and interventionism.

IAS men are like the "Prussian metaphysicians." They don't know First Principles. I had earlier written about the IAS Academy director Wajahat Habibullah, currenctly "misinformation czar," and his "misteaching" of young recruits. This should be seen as a crisis in socialist public administration.

What this means is that, if we want Capitalism, and we want the "Rule of Law" and "good governance" and all those pretty words this retired highness dreamt up, we need to stress Private Property as the First Principle.

This should be seen as a Constitutional Crisis - because the socialist constitution does NOT recognize Private Property at all.

A crisis of legitimacy.